“You get a free lunch and we gain your attention” is the idea behind Lunch & Learn, a regular info event held for Mayer & Cie. (MCT) employees at which interesting topics are presented to employees by the colleagues responsible for them. Michael A. Tuschak, in charge of spinitsystems marketing and sales at Mayer & Cie., presented the latest topic, spinitsystems technology and the Spinit 3.0 E. He explained to a full house of employees how spinning and knitting, two previously distinct and separate processes, are merged and performed by one machine.

Because the fundamental difference lies in the raw material the machine processes the speaker had some at the ready to illustrate his talk. In contrast to the yarns that a conventional knitting machine processes, the Spinit uses an upstream product known as roving. The Lunch & Learn audience felt the sample and quickly realised that rubbing or pulling it a little is sufficient to make the roving break. So how is it processed?

Michael A. Tuschak demonstrated the process by showing the route that the roving takes through the drafting system, by explaining the break draft and the main draft and by noting that the resulting – fine – fibre bundle the machine then knits does not have a twist. This is another exceptional feature that only functions, Tuschak explained, because a Relanit, a machine with which all Mayer employees were familiar, takes care of the knitting. It is, in fact, the only way in which the thin roving can be handled. The Relanit’s relative movement technology works the yarn with especial care. Because the needle and sinker move toward each other, the stitch formation process is much gentler. That is why a Relanit may even handle fibres without a twist.

Michael A. Tuschak ended his talk with an overview of the Spinit’s development to date. The machine has been in pre-series since the 2015 ITMA and a number of machines have been sold to pilot customers. They have been shipped to India and America, where they are in use in real-life industry conditions. “As soon as we are satisfied with the results of these field trials it will be time for the design freeze and for series production,” he said, adding that “we are ready and our production line for the Spinit is ready to go.” To show that this is the case he invited interested colleagues to join him on a site visit that afternoon.